[tomlock]

I find it kind of confusing that you seem to be posting articles, claims and references to funding that can’t be found in the article, or don’t seem related to the article.

For instance, you’ve just now made the claim that there are “many” movies with more female than male lines. The article clearly states that in their analysis, they found that 1505 films had 60% or more male lines, while only 173 had 60% or more female lines. That’s a ratio of nearly 10:1. Where are you getting your figures from?

Additionally my initial criticism of you was that you seemed happy to trust your intuition about magazines without any quantifiable evidence. I implied that perhaps without this article, you’d be making a similar claim about the prevalence of movies with women as the predominant speakers in them. This analysis is useful because it can be used to demonstrate that there truly is evidence of a gap between the amount of talking time men and women get in movies.

Perhaps you should examine your behaviour and ask yourself if you’re truly free from bias, when instead of quantifying your objections to a quantified claim, you’ve implied that somehow this is the work of biased academics.

[facepalm]

I find it confusing that you don't even seem to read my comments, and instead claim I said things I didn't. Perhaps instead of accusing me of bias, you should work on your reading skills?

I never made a claim about the authors funding. I also didn't claim that they are biased (although I find it curious that they only use 2000 of the 8000 scripts they found). I DO think they have an agenda, but I wasn't talking about that in this comment thread yet. Nor did I claim that their numbers are wrong.

So if it is important to you that a film you watch has more female than male lines, you have more than 150 to choose from. If you are generous and include movies with an even number of male and female lines, you are up to 490 movies (out of the 2000 they analyzed), or roughly 25% of all movies. Maybe that is plenty enough?

I never doubted their result that there is a "gap" between talking time, averaged across all movies (or at least the movies they looked at). However, why should you care about talking times of movies you don't watch? What matters is the movies you watch. That is all I am saying.

Personally I also think it is stupid to judge a movie by that criterion (likewise for the Bechdel Test), but if it is important to you, why not. But unless you run out of films to watch, there isn't really a problem.

[tomlock]

> How can we be sure that the 2000 movies the article talks about randomly selected movies, not movies cherry picked to show the desired result?

Could you let me know how this doesn’t read as implying the author has bias? Am I perhaps misreading this?

> I don't have a gender studies grant or anything to pay for it.

Am I perhaps misreading that you think research like this is funded by gender studies grants?

Also I’d consider “having an agenda” to be a subset of “being biased”. Perhaps you could state what you see the differences as, and perhaps the evidence you have that suggests the author had an agenda before embarking on this analysis?

From the article as a counterpoint to your claim of an agenda:

“Lately, Hollywood has been taking so much shit for rampant sexism and racism. The prevailing theme: white men dominate movie roles. But it’s all rhetoric and no data, which gets us nowhere in terms of having an informed discussion.”

And here’s a screenshot from the reddit discussion: http://imgur.com/XvaZbFy

You also have provided no quantifiable evidence that there is a bias in favour of women in any area of media, let alone in an area as broad as “movies”. Do you have such evidence?

Also at what point did anyone mention they were afraid of running out of movies to watch?

[facepalm]

"(2000 movies cherry picked?) Could you let me know how this doesn’t read as implying the author has bias? Am I perhaps misreading this?"

That was a question I posed, not a claim. They mention they only used 2000 of the 8000 movies and never explain why. And yes, I don't necessarily trust those authors (the way you seem to do), because they have an agenda. Doesn't mean I believe they are lying, but it must be allowed to poke at the article with a stick.

"Am I perhaps misreading that you think research like this is funded by gender studies grants?"

I have no doubt that studies like this is sometimes funded by gender studies grants. I didn't make that claim about the article here. Still, somebody needs to pay for it. So you can not just dismiss anybody else's response with "why don't you do your own study".

"perhaps the evidence you have that suggests the author had an agenda before embarking on this analysis?"

They say so themselves in their article, right at the top. They set out to demonstrate that white men dominate movie roles.

"You also have provided no quantifiable evidence that there is a bias in favour of women in any area of media, let alone in an area as broad as “movies”. Do you have such evidence?"

I never made a claim of bias in media, just that there is plenty of stuff for women to consume (not saying there isn't bias, just that I didn't talk about it). A quick Google search or visit to your nearest news agent could confirm that for you, I don't think I should have to invest time to provide you with a dossier for that.

"Also at what point did anyone mention they were afraid of running out of movies to watch?"

Well what are the authors afraid of? They say "white men dominate movie roles" and assume that is self-evidently a problem. Well, it is not, so I tried to guess why it could be a problem. The only time I would consider it a problem would be if it would lead to some demographic (say, women) running out of movies to watch. However, if there was so much unfulfilled desire, it would be a market opportunity and I can't see why the industry wouldn't react. In fact, if feminists are so convinced that many, many women are longing for different movies, they should raise money to make those movies. (Anita Sarkeezian already raised amore than a million $ for some lousy YouTube videos, so it certainly isn't impossible to raise money for feminist movies).

Let's take another occupation, modeling - it seems as if women dominate the modeling industry. Is that a problem? Do we need a campaign for more male models, and higher pay of male models? I personally don't care, because I am not interested in seeing more male models. If a lot of people were interested, the industry would most likely react.

In the same way, if a lot of people want to see movies with male actors (say they are into war movies, or action flicks), why would it have to be considered a problem?

[tomlock]

> They set out to demonstrate that white men dominate movie roles.

They don't write this in the article so why do you say this?

> In fact, if feminists are so convinced that many, many women are longing for different movies, they should raise money to make those movies. (Anita Sarkeezian already raised amore than a million $ for some lousy YouTube videos, so it certainly isn't impossible to raise money for feminist movies).

You're ranting about something not related to the article, again.

> it seems as if women dominate the modeling industry.

Another claim with no evidence. Another perfect demonstration of why the quantification in the article is useful.

[facepalm]

"They don't write this in the article so why do you say this?"

They write it literally in the first paragraph: "white men dominate movie roles... But it’s all rhetoric and no data...To begin answering these questions"

"You're ranting about something not related to the article, again."

You don't seem to understand or not want to understand the point I am trying to make. Nor have you ever answered my question what, in your opinion, is the actual problem the article uncovers?

"Another claim with no evidence. Another perfect demonstration of why the quantification in the article is useful."

That is just ridiculous. First, just because you throw some numbers or data around, you don't have evidence. In this case, you have data about lines in movies, but not about customer demand for movies of various properties (for example). Second, it is still possible to have a conversation without an Excel sheet in the background. You also don't seem to be interested enough in my argument to do your own research.

I actually did google a bit on the model thing, but the first hits were about male models earning less than female models. Finding actual numbers of employed models and the exposure they get would have taken longer. It simply didn't seem worth it for an example, given that I am not campaigning for model rights or anything.

Maybe I would have even made that effort, but the model, as well as the women's magazines, are actually just an example. I clearly stated that. They are meant as a thought experiment. Unless you are convinced that there is no industry on earth dominated by women (are you?), it doesn't matter if in one particular example the numbers add up, because by magic of armchair thinking, you could just pick another example to clarify the concept. Or let's assume no industry on earth is dominated by women. You could STILL make a thought experiment and think of some theoretical industry where women dominate, to try to understand the point. If you have at least a shred of imagination, that is.

I am not going to repeat the point I was trying to make, as you seem to be not interested in understanding it (not even accepting it, just understanding it).

Should my estimate of your motivation be wrong, ask away and I'll try to clarify. Otherwise, why not end the discussion here.

[tomlock]

Without your ellipses it doesn't come across as a literal statement:

"The prevailing theme: white men dominate movie roles."

That is not equivalent to "White men dominate movie roles." The prevailing theme of the shit Hollywood is getting is that white men dominate movie roles. How can you look at yourself as a reliable source when you need to chop up quotes so needlessly?

Interestingly, even given your massacring of quotes, you seem totally willing to conduct thought experiments, and use the results (lol) of your thought experiments to accuse articles of being useless. Without quantification, in the words of the article "it’s all rhetoric and no data, which gets us nowhere in terms of having an informed discussion."

Unfortunately, you seem absolutely convinced that the burden lies on me to provide proof, that meets your standards, for claims you make from thought experiments, that aren't addressed or even mentioned in the article.

As I said very early on, I encourage you to do some quantifiable analysis.